A Second Chance

Prologue

"Are you working on your project again?" the sound of a rich male voice reached her ears as she was toying around inside of what looked like a human body.

She stood up and brushed a lock of ebon hair back over her shoulder, a lock that had slipped free from its bindings in the high bun. As the young woman did this she smudged a nice line of red up over her right eye to disappear into her hairline just behind her ear. She set the pair of instruments that she had been using down on the cart next to the table.

"Yes, yes dear brother I am working on my project again as you like to call it," she replied back with a smile.

She then reached over and picked up a towel to wipe off her hands as she turned to face her brother, the same loveable man that she has lived with all her life. The two were inseparable, one would swear that they were identical twins, though that was impossible for they would have to be of the same sex for that to be true. They were fraternal twins that would put most identical twins to shame with the bond that they share. She shook her head in thought as she cocked it to the side; she watched him he stood by the door, waiting. His odd miss-matched eyes following her about her task as she started to walk away from the table.

"I think that he can wait a little bit longer," she said with a smile. "I haven't brought his system online yet so it is safe to leave him the way he sits right now."

"Will you have to worry about contamination?" Her brother asked, "you look like your going to leave him wide open."

"I'm not leaving long enough to let that happen!" she exclaimed with a light laugh.

She again looked up at her twin who was actually only a half an inch taller then her standing at five-foot, seven and a half inches. His eyes sparkled oddly for his left eye was slate blue while the right was gray green. His right eye was artificial, a cybernetic replacement that she had made and installed after the accident. That had been quite a fright for this young 24-year-old, when she saw that a rampaging Maverick had removed half of her brother's face. That sent her on a focused mission to not only save her brother's life but restore his face as well. She was glad to have Guri and Draka close at hand.

"That reminds me how much of the corrupted memory have you been able to decipher?" She asked after a few moments of silence.

"I'm getting closer to half," the man replied back as the pair walked down the hall. "It's damaged far worse then what I thought, sis." He said with a shake of his head sending his dark ebon locks swaying.

"That is not a good sign," she replied with a soft sigh, before reaching up to rub her forehead with her right hand. "Damn, I wish I could have gotten there sooner."

"You did the best that you could Khoal," the woman's brother replied as the stopped by a door on the left hand side of the hall. He reached out and hit the keypad and the door to the room slid open. He then stepped to the side so that his sister could enter. "None of us knew that the attack on the gallerea was going to happen. Truthfully I found it more disappointing that they were going to scrap so many of the robots there that had sustained damage. A quite a few of them were in such good shape. Here we are, I'll show you what I have done thus far."

"I know what you mean bro," Khoal replied as she stepped into the room. "I'm just glad that we could salvage all that we did. Unfortunately they only allowed us to take three of the robots and that was like pulling teeth to do so."

The room that the pair entered was frequently called the Cerebral Matrix, for those who wished to call the room something. The circular room was spotless and kept in a neat and tidy order. This was the one room that had to stay organized, there was too much at stake for it not to be. If the memory rods within the room were ever to be mixed it would take weeks, to months, even years to go over all the data that was stored in this room and return it to its catalogued slot. The room was run by Slate, Khoal's twin, he was the one who could best delve into the minds of others. In this case he was working on extracting the data information that resided in the mangled body of a robot, several decades old. Data information that would one day would be restored to a functioning body, in the line of memory rods.

In the center of the room was a large circular pad that looked much like a capsule by its structure. Hanging from the ceiling above the pad was a series of tubing and wires with a variety of different attachments. Some of them were attached to a mangled robot. Around back half of the circular room was a large computer set up with a variety of different functions from scanning to identification, extraction to data crunching, and much more, all the necessary components to obtain data from complex mechanical systems. A variety of tools were laid out on a table next to the chest high circular pad, all within easy reach of the high stool set by the pad as well.

"It appears that you have been quite busy?" Khoal remarked as she walked over to the table to see how the 'patient' looked.

There really wasn't much left of the black robotic form, it consisted of a partial chest, one complete arm, and the head. The other arm was mangled from mid-shoulder down to the elbow the rest was missing. What was left of the head was heavily damaged as well, more then half of the left side face had been stripped away, down to raw circuit boards and wires beneath the metal skin. A good portion of the lower jaw was gone, what was left was crushed inwardly and embedded in the back of the skull. The right side was mostly intact with the exception of a few large dents. What would consist of the top portion of the robot's skull had been removed to reach the internal CPU system that served as this robot's brain. There were several connecting wires and tubes run into the robotic brain that served as up-links to the computer systems in the back of the room.

"I have been quite busy, no thanks to you," Slate replied in jest to his sister, as he walked towards the back of the room. "I can tell you one thing, this has been quite the project."

"I can believe it," Khoal called from her spot by the pad, as she stood by the robots head she reached out and touched the its face with a gentle hand, careful not to disturb any of the wires in the process.

"Why don't you come over and take a look," Khoal's twin said over his shoulder as he sat down in a chair and began to type in what was needed to bring up the schematics of what he had finished so far.

"Coming," Khoal said, after one last look down at the robot before she turned away and started over to the computer. Once there she leaned on the back of his chair with one hand so she could get a better look at the data at the bottom of the large screen.

"Hmmm, looks like you have got a good portion of this sorted out into rods already," she commented, as she scanned over the screen before pointing at a section towards the bottom of the screen. "What is that?"

"That, dear sister, is the problem that I have run into," Slate replied, "I have started to delve a bit deeper into the more damaged areas of the CPU and this is what I have been coming up with. It's not all that serious, it is just time consuming to sort through. I believe these last four rows," he points at the screen as he talks, "will fall into place with a little bit of work."

Slate then looked up at the woman as she leaned over his shoulder. "It is the heavily damaged areas that I am worried about, that data may be lost or too full of holes, to even be worth saving," he explained as he shook his head. "I won't know till I reach them though."

"Looks like your coming along at a steady pace though, even with the slight set backs that you have had so far," she replied with a smile, her tone sounding a bit more relieved. "You had me really worried at first when you said that there might not be much left to salvage when we first brought this one in."

"Yes, I'm glad it has been going this well, much to Guri's dismay I might add," Slate replied with a light chuckle.

"I know, I know, he has been against this project from the beginning," she responded as she stood up.

"You don't seem to bothered by this, sis," he replied as he swiveled the chair around to face her. "Are you not afraid that he might try to do something to damage the project?"

She shook her head. "No I'm not worried at all. Guri may be vocal about not wanting me to complete this project but he would never do anything to jeopardize it, it's not in his nature to do so."

"Ah, I see," Slate said with a smile.

"Well I better get back to work," Khoal responded, "you should too." She then turned and left Slate to his work as she returned to her own.